LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 100: Streets of Astillen Recen
After getting off the main street and away from the mages in the wealthy district, Levin and Rolwen began their tour of the back streets and ally ways of Astillen Recen, the city named after the river on which it was built.
One of the first things they’d noticed was most certainly the smell. Several places in the less affluent regions of the city seemed to have open piles of human waste piled up. They’d spent the past three years travelling with a tribe that lived close to animals, so they were no strangers to urine and fecal matter being out in the open. However, there seemed to be something particularly revolting about the smell of human waste as compared to animal waste. This was made all the worse by the fact that it was all gathered in large piles instead of dispersed over the plains as such biological matter was with the Hidan.
The second thing they noticed was actually the distinct lack of something they had half expected to find.
{There doesn’t seem to be any beggars or orphans or anything around here.} Rolwen commented.
{Yeah, now that you mention it.} Levin commented as he looked around.
{Well, considering, err…} “Considering what we just rescued a bunch of this city’s people from, I’d say there’s no way this is for the lack of their existence.” Rolwen observed. “ahh… umm…” {In a world where that kind of violence is common, a lot of kids are going to be loosing their parents. And there are always poor people about forced to beg for alms}
{It’s pretty confusing when you switch languages mid sentence like that.} Levin said.
{What? We can’t have people overhearing certain things. And you know both languages anyway.} Rolwen said. “Besides, it’s a skill that will be good to master. It’s not the most subtle way to hide information, but it works.”
“I know English better. I get thrown off when you suddenly switch back to the plains language.”
{Yes, but as I said, we should probably use this for the most part.} “Unless we’re talking about sensitive information, that is.”
Rolwen began swapping between languages with an increasing smoothness. The self-satisfied grin on his face was something that just made Levin almost want to hit him. He was such a show-off it was disgusting.
{Umm… anyway,} Rolwen squirmed a little, probably having seen the death-glare that Levin was giving him. {So… this means they probably have some kind of program here to help the poor. That’s a pretty big find for us, considering our mission. Let’s go see if we can confirm this. I say we start with the church. Nandin said they worship a pantheon under the goddess of unity, right? And then Gwendir said they have a single temple that worships all the gods together. It should be pretty big… umm… but it’s also probably close to the rich district again.}
Levin’s face instantly turned into a scowl. {We just ran away from the mages. They will probably be on alert for us.}
{Yeah… it’s probably not worth the risk.} Rolwen conceded. {I’m sure Asa will be up our asses a lot harder if we get compromised than if we fail to get good information.}
{Can’t we just find Gwendir or someone from the group and ask them a bit more? Now that we’ve seen a little bit for ourselves, we can ask them better questions. We can probably find out what was going on with those mages as well.}
Rolwen snapped his fingers and gesticulated strongly toward Levin at his suggestion. {Now that’s thinking! I’m a bit ashamed at myself for not thinking of it first. Alright, we’ll go with that.} “I mean, we’re already passing ourselves off as orphans who came back with the group. I’m sure it won’t look too strange for us to go looking for some of them.”
{I swear. You’re the one who said we should stick to the language of the plains, but you’re the one speaking “English” the most out of the two of us.} Levin grumbled and shuffled on to follow Rolwen as they ventured back to the main streets of the city.
They were both glad to get away from the cesspool of a back district of the city and back toward the wider roads. The space felt more open and lively. However, the closer they progressed toward the main streets, the more and more something just seemed off about the crowds of people in the area.
The people on the street seemed somewhat less dense than when they’d entered the city, but there was nothing inherently off about that. They’d created quite the commotion as they’d come in. It would only figure that crowds would gather for something like that. Half the city was probably crowded in on a single location, so it’s entirely unlikely that the numbers they’d seen then were at all reflective of what they’d normally be expected to see on the city streets.
However, even considering that, the numbers just seemed a little too low for the number of houses they could see given the time of day. In their field of vision, they could see just over a dozen or so individuals.
It’s possible this could just be a difference of expectations. They’d both grown up on Earth in their previous lives and grown used to even the smallest towns with a number of gas stations that could be counted on one hand having populations that would equal or exceed the cities of this world. However, these numbers still felt a little low.
And yet, that was really not the thing that felt off. Not the largest thing, anyway.
{Uhh… hey. Are they staring at us?} Levin asked.
{Huh? Uhh…} Rolwen stammered. “Shit! You’re right.” He said, barely above a whisper. “Why would they be staring at a couple of kids like that? It’s not like we were dressed in fatigues in the middle east here.”
Sure enough, they were getting quite a few concerned glances and whispers from the people around. Quite a few were repeatedly glancing their way while being distracted from whatever daily tasks they were doing.
Combined with the relative thinness of the crowd, it was all just kind of creepy.
{Sooo…. uhhh… what should we do?} Levin asked.
{Just keep moving.} Rolwen said. {Forget about finding anybody, let’s just get out of this area.}
{Hey!} A man yelled to them as they were about to head off. {Why aren’t you boys over by the temple right now?}
{Uhh… we were just heading there!} Rolwen responded back on the spot.
{Make sure you hurry up!} The man said. {The line will have gotten pretty long by now. You don’t want to have to wait too long for your chance.}
{Yeah, alright! Thanks Mr.} Rolwen said with an enthusiastic wave. {Let’s go!} He added, grabbing Levin by the hand as he went off running.
Levin’s mind went reeling as he stumbled and tried to keep up with Rolwen’s pace. By now, he was familiar with what he was up to. He knew for sure that Rolwen had no intention of heading for the temple. They’d only just agreed earlier they would be staying away from there. He was probably even less aware of what the hell that guy was talking about with all the ‘wait too long for your chance’ and ‘waiting in line’ stuff was all about. It was all just him saying what was expected so the guy who called out to them wouldn’t be suspicious of them or cause them too much trouble.
Still, what WAS that guy talking about? Kids at the temple? Now come to think of it, that could explain a lot of things. They weren’t seeing any kids at all, and the adult population seemed to be a fair bit below what they were expecting. Were all the kids and most of the city’s adult population at the temple right now? Was it some kind of special worship service?
Then he remembered. There also didn’t seem to be all that many poor people or anything like that in the alley ways. Maybe they were giving some kind of charity service at the church or something? That would certainly fit everything they were seeing well enough.
These thoughts were starting to bother him more and more. It was getting to a point he felt they really had to talk this out.
{Let’s go back there!} Levin said as they were approaching another alleyway just off the main street. Along with those words, he suddenly took the lead and pulled Rolwen off to the side. Thankfully he didn’t fight this sudden assertiveness at all. Rolwen immediately followed Levin’s lead and they both took off out of sight of the main populous.
{Alright, what’s up?} Rolwen asked.
{Well… it’s just… what now?} Levin asked. {It seems like something’s going on at the temple and all the kids are supposed to go there. We’re going to look suspicious so long as we’re doing anything but going straight there with everyone else.}
{Yeah…} Rolwen said and brought his hand up to his chin. {That is a bit of an issue. Little bit of a rock and a hard place there.}
{Maybe we actually should try going after all.} Levin suggested. {It might be easier to blend in if everyone else is there. Human mages are not supposed to be able to sense spirit energy like fey do. Maybe they were just looking at us because of how we are dressed or something. We would look pretty gross compared to most of the people that would be in that part of town.}
{Hmm…} Rolwen said, still pondering over the idea. {That could be… but, it could also be they have a sense for mana.} He said. {Or, they could even have a technique similar to our internal fire that lets us sense spirit energy. Asaren said it often enough. We have this because of a technique that came from Earth, but we should not assume we’re the only ones with any given technique. Even back on Earth, the French martial art of Baritsu is incredibly similar to the Japanese Jututsu, despite the lack of any contact between the cultures. The two martial arts still have an almost identical set of techniques. All it took was them both having to find ways to fight armored opponents with grappling, and the techniques were universal.}
{So… what should we do?} Levin asked. {We’ve pretty much done nothing since we got here except run around in back alleyways and see a few massive piles of human excrement. We haven’t really figured out all that much.}
{Hmm…} Rolwen hummed once again. {Ok, why not! It sounds like whatever’s going on at the temple is a pretty big cultural event of some kind. Whatever it is, it’s going to be extremely revealing. If something goes wrong, we make a break for it. We shouldn’t have much trouble getting back to where the escort party is waiting. The worst that might happen is we get found out and make a bit of a stir when we make a run for it.}